A Beekeeping Journey

About Us

My wife and I live in Southern Indiana with our two children. I am a Client Experience Manager by day and a beekeeper by night & weekend. We started Promised Land Honey Farm to study bees, help the planet, and to hopefully get a little honey. We are beginners. This is our journey.

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Inspecting the Hive

Tonight we did our first full inspection since correcting the cross-bar comb. We wanted to get in there and make sure everything was going as planned. We slowly opened the hive and lifted out the propolis-sealed bars, one by one. To our delight, there was beautiful, snow white comb hanging from 7 of the 11 bars. And it was all straight.

Some of the combs were smaller than others. My wife happened to pull one of the smaller samples out. You can see the disappointment on her face 😉 You’ll also notice she’s the braver of us, as she isn’t wearing any gloves. I’m yet to try that!

We found the queen on the second to last comb we inspected, which was the third comb from the entrance. She has a blue dot on her back. You’ll spot her toward the bottom of the comb on the image below. She was hard to locate, even with the dot. I can’t imagine ever finding her without it. I’m going to have to train my eyes.

We didn’t find any eggs or larvae, but it was difficult hard to see through the layer of bees. Next time we do an inspection (probably a week from now) we’ll look more intently for signs of reproduction.

My wife and I live in Southern Indiana with our two children. I am a Client Experience Manager by day and a beekeeper by night & weekend. We started Promised Land Honey Farm to study bees, help the planet, and to hopefully get a little honey. We are beginners. This is our journey.